Our
room in the Shangri-La was facing out towards the river with a
preview of the gumdrop mountains. The hotel also had 2 pools, and an
area to do tai chi in the morning.
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| View from our window from the Shangri-La in Guilin |
Breakfast
was at 6:30 am and was, by far the best breakfast of the whole trip
for me as we were finally having real traditional Chinese food.
Apparently there are a ton of native Chinese visitors to Guilin so
they cater mostly to them rather than Westerners. For a city of 1
million, there were about 8-10 million tourists.
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| 4 kinds of congee! |
The
onion pancakes were to die for as was the tea leaf wrapped sticky
rice that had chopped beans, a chestnut, and a piece of meat in the
middle. Charlie called the white blob on my plate an “eye ball”
but it was actually a ball of glutinous rice with sweet bean paste in
the middle. They also, for the first time that I saw, had warmed soy
milk soup and 4 different types of congee. The only downside to this
breakfast was that we were a little late getting downstairs (after 7
am) and by the time we looked around and got our food, it was utterly
packed with people and was the only morning where we didn’t get to
sit with Wade and Charlie.
We
finished our breakfast and went back up to our room which happened to
be up on the concierge club level so I ducked into the club and took
a look around. Compared to the dining room downstairs it was
basically deserted. The view was beautiful.
We
met downstairs to the hotel lobby at 8:15 am and picked up our lunch
boxes from the hotel as we got on our motor coach – we had selected
these on the first day: ham and cheese. It also included a salad
with thousand island dressing, an apple, a small can of what looked
like Pringles, a bottle of orange juice and a bottle of water.
It
was about 30 minutes to the boat dock. Jenny walked us into the
ticket building which was packed full of people kind of like an
airport.
We
walked past the obligatory shopping zone but were told earlier that
this wasn’t the place to shop – we would be taken somewhere else
after the cruise to a better shopping area. The boats were lined up
– there were over 100 of them and each held about 100 people.
We
boarded and walked past the 1st deck which was for what
our Guides called “common people” and went up the stairs to the
2nd deck which we would have all to ourselves. The deck
was air conditioned and we had our own private outside observation
area. It was hot and humid outside so it was nice to be able to go
in and out of the air conditioning, Tea was complimentary.
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| Walking through the 1st deck on our way upstairs to deck 2 |
Just a tip: we sat at the far end of the deck right by the door that goes out to our private balcony. People were going in and out this door and this part of the deck did get warmer than the rest of the air conditioned deck.
Jenny came by and explained the sites along our trip. The river was particularly low so it was going to take about 5 hours to make it down the river to our destination. The first little bit of the cruise was nothing special and we enjoyed the air conditioning inside but when we rounded the first bend, the view of the gumdrop mountains is indescribable. Daisy had told us that there are only 2 places in the world that have these kinds of rock formations/mountains: Guilin and in Vietnam.
Jenny came by and explained the sites along our trip. The river was particularly low so it was going to take about 5 hours to make it down the river to our destination. The first little bit of the cruise was nothing special and we enjoyed the air conditioning inside but when we rounded the first bend, the view of the gumdrop mountains is indescribable. Daisy had told us that there are only 2 places in the world that have these kinds of rock formations/mountains: Guilin and in Vietnam.
We
took tons of pictures, video and pano views. At one point, we went
up to the top observation deck and were all alone for a good 10 or 15
minutes.
Disney bought us some local snacks while on
board: fried taro root, river crabs, river snails, fish, and tiny
shrimp.
The cruise was so relaxing but a word of caution to any future cruisers – the bathrooms (located downstairs on the 1st deck) started off at about 3 stars and went quickly downhill from there as the cruise progressed.
We were given our pin of the day as we exited the boat.
The
next 30 minutes or so was pure chaos. We went by the obligatory
vendors along with thousands of other people getting off the cruise.
It was really hot and humid at this point and we were squished in
like sardines all trying to get out of the dock area. If only Disney
was in control of this exit process.
When we were finally let out,
we headed for some shuttles that took us to the shopping market in
Guongshou. We were each given 20 RMB to spend in the market to get
our white elephant gifts along with red bags to put them in.
Our
first order of business was finding the Rosewood hotel where Jenny
and the Guides would be hanging out to use the bathrooms. We walked
right past it and had to turn back around again but I did stop in a
store to buy some pork jerky that’s very hard to find in the US.
We found the bathroom and then backtracked to find something for the
gift exchange tonight. We settled on bottles of the local spirit
that we had tried on the cruise and also bought a small cup to drink
them with. We didn’t even try to barter with the guy.
We
also found a magnet along with a hair comb and hair pin for me –
total of 30 RMB. We did bargain with a woman for a folding fan –
20 RMB from 45 RMB.
We
gathered near the KFC and walked back to an area to catch another
shuttle back to the motor coach – we were all hot and sweaty. It
was about an hour to get back to the hotel where we showered and
tried to cool off a bit.
A note to future travelers to the
Shangri-La in Guilin, they gave us 2 room keys and it takes putting
the room key into the slot next to the door to power the room. While
we were gone, the AC went off and it was very warm when we returned –
we should have left one of our room keys in the slot to keep our room
cool while we were gone.
We
met down to the U Bar for our special BBQ dinner at 7 pm. We had 2
entertainers singing karaoke and the first round of alcohol was on
the Mouse. I actually found a fruit that I had never seen nor eaten
before – raw dates. I had no idea they were shaped like a small
apple and they crunched like an apple. They were so good, I ate like
10 of them.
After dinner, we headed out to one of the hotel’s ballrooms upstairs for our White Elephant game. This version was slightly different in that we didn’t start with number 1 but, rather, number 14 (random pick). A gift was “frozen” with its 3rd owner, the first person to go would have the opportunity to not only steal at the end but also have a pick of any of the frozen items as well. The gifts were all in red bags and there was no feeling or touching the bags before opening one.
The
gifts were cute: a few scarves, chopstick sets, Chinese calligraphy
pen, Asian wine bottle covers, keychains, back scratches/massageres,
and other nick knacks. The funniest of the evening were the t-shirts
that the group of 4 from LA/NYC had made with a picture of Ralph and
Daisy on it. Another part of the gift exchange that was different
was that we actually revealed who bought which gift and there was a
contest on who got the best bargain. Someone had bought an item that
was over 400 RMB and got it for 20 RMB and won another t-shirt with a
picture of Daisy and Ralph on the Great Wall. I’m pretty sure I
had the most gifts stolen from me and when I went up for the last
time to pick another bag, I ended up with one of our own gifts. We
had a really fun time and picked up not only spirits and a cup but
also a wine coozy.
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| T-shirt from our White Elephant gift exchange for getting the best bargain. |
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